by Josh Karnes
Chapter 47
Isla Roca, Puerto Rico
Dear God, I'm gong to drown, James thought, as he felt the cool water flow over his body. And then, what have I done?
Joseph... oh my God... this is what happened to Joseph.
James had a surprising moment of mental clarity after just a few brief seconds of absolute terror. This was all his fault. Every single thing. It all started with Greer. No, it started before Greer. It started when James had decided to do some moonlighting and earn some extra money. He was only trying to provide for his family. How could he have possibly known? How could he anticipate that taking a side job to help pay some bills would result in the destruction of his family, the loss of his son, and now his own imminent death?
He knew it was his fault, absolutely. This was an objective fact. But it wasn't the truth. He did what he did, everything, out of love for his family. That was the truth. He had made choices, some bad but some perfectly good, simply because he wanted to care for his wife. His sons. To provide for them. This was his calling in his life. It was all he ever wanted. To be a father they could depend on. To give them what they needed. How could such a noble desire turn into such tragedy?
In this moment of introspection, with the water rushing by his open eyes as he descended into some pitch black abyss of nothingness, he considered: his desire was not so noble. Had he just stuck it out, they would have made it, even without the moonlighting. It would have been tough, but they would have done it just fine. Looking back, the irony was that they had made the changes that would have made their financial situation work, but only after they were sued by Greer. They downsized, shared cars, tightened the belt. This was what responsible people did. This is what his father would have done. Or his grandfather. But James didn't do that. He decided the solution was more money, and he went after it. There's nothing noble about that. It's pride. Or greed. Or maybe vanity. But it was not one hundred percent noble.
After that, James had reached the pinnacle of his pride. He violated his wife's trust. Undermined his relationship with his children. Broke the law. All of this to correct for his previous error. He easily rationalized the first choice. After all, working a side job to make extra money when the bills piled up may not be completely noble, but it's hardly wrong. But when the wheels fell off after the lawsuit, he responded with a very wrong choice, and it was that choice that had led him directly here. It solved his money problems with a vengeance. But everything else fell apart.
Had it not been for the money he made with Tim, he would not have needed to “fix” his family. They wouldn't have needed this vacation. He wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway. Instead of being pulled underwater by some mysterious force, James would now be sitting at home in their old shabby rent house around the dinner table, having just finished dinner, laughing and talking with his beautiful wife and amazing sons. All three of them. But instead, one boy was gone, and now James was following him to a watery grave. He considered, have Mark and Eli jumped in after me? Perhaps they all would die here, in this hole in the water.
James considered the horror that Joseph must have felt, being pulled under in the same way. The pain of the water entering his lungs. The terror of knowing he would not be rescued. The feeling of a weight on his chest so heavy he cannot bear it. The shock of the darkness that James was now enveloped in. Did Joseph have this same moment of mental clarity that James now was experiencing? Did he have peace, or violence?
As James was considering that any moment now his own lungs would be filled with water as he would inevitably fail to keep from exhaling what air was in there now, he began to notice an unexpected sensation. It was as if time itself had stopped. He could no longer feel the water that he knew surrounded him. He could no longer feel the force he knew was pulling him under. The blackness that enveloped James was complete, eternal. It was as if he was ceasing to exist, and his awareness of his own existence was diminishing, even the memory of it. This must be death, he thought. To cease to exist. To cease remembering. To no longer be. But how was he aware of his drifting? He could sense that he did still exist, but just not in the same type of awareness that he was used to. There was no worry, no rush. No regret. No concern. Just darkness. Stillness. Is this peace? He thought.
And then there was what felt like eternity. Eternity with no thinking. No memories. Just nothing. And after this eternity of nothing, James began to sense his own awareness of life. In a disorienting rush, he saw his eyelids as they pulled away from his eyes, revealing his surroundings in a way not unlike the opening of a curtain. And it felt to James as if he was just then beginning to exist. For a moment he had no memory. No awareness of time, or of his own history. The past, the future, these ideas were only newly being formed as if his own knowledge of himself was being rebuilt.
The light of the room he was in assaulted his eyes. The suddenness of sounds, voices around him and noises he realized he recognized as dishes rattling against silverware, air moving, muted sounds of traffic, all exploded to life in his ears. He saw a person sitting directly in front of him. The man was talking.
“So, what do you say? In? Are we doing this?” James heard the man say.
With a jolt, James realized at that moment, like pieces abruptly being assembled into a giant puzzle that was his life, exactly who he was, where he was, and what he was doing.
“James,” Tim said, prompting him for a response to his question.
In response, James abruptly stood up from the table, delivered a short, stunned look to his former friend, and ran out of the restaurant as fast as his feet would carry him.
